The 69-year-old, a lawmaker with the center-right Republicans party, was killed in Calavdos in Normandy, northern France, French media said.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to him on Twitter.

Olivier Dassault aimait la France. Capitaine d’industrie, député, élu local, commandant de réserve dans l’armée de l’air : sa vie durant, il ne cessa de servir notre pays, d’en valoriser les atouts. Son décès brutal est une grande perte. Pensées à sa famille et à ses proches.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 7, 2021

Dassault was seen in a public engagement on Friday in Beauvais near Paris with Prime Minister Jean Castex and Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin.

He was born on June 1, 1951 in Boulogne-Billancourt, a plush Parisian suburb.

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Dassault was worth an estimated €5 billion, according to Forbes Magazine. His two brothers and his sisters are amongst the heirs to the family fortune.

The business empire was founded by his grandfather Marcel, an aeronautical engineer and celebrated inventor who developed a propeller used in French planes during World War I.

Defying opposition from the French government, the family turned it into an aviation and defense giant before branching out into media assets.

It counts right-leaning French daily Le Figaro amongst the publications that it owns.

The group’s Rafale aircraft is considered one of the world’s most advanced fighter planes.

Source: NDTV, DW